Today’s Reading: Romans 5:12-20
In the very beginning, God created a perfect world. There was no sin, pain, sickness, death or sadness. God created Adam and Eve to live in His perfect world with joy and peace. But Adam and Eve sinned. They disobeyed God. When they sinned, God’s perfect world broke. There was a punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin. Because God is perfect, He cannot be near sin.
So Adam and Eve were separated from God.
The punishment for their sin would also be placed on all humans who were born after Adam and Eve. But before Adam and Eve left God’s perfect Garden, God made a promise. God promised to send a Rescuer, someone to save Adam, Eve and mankind from the punishment of sin. He promised to send Jesus!
God did not send Jesus to rescue His people right away. God waited thousands of years to send the Rescuer. During that time, God’s people faced many hard things. While they waited, God gave them hints and clues about how Jesus would come, what He would do and what He would be like. These hints, written in Scriptures by prophets, would help God’s people wait. The verse from Isaiah that we read together after lighting the Advent candle was written while God’s people waited those thousands of years for the Savior.
During that time, God made other promises to His children and kept those promises. Each time God made and kept a promise, it helped His children trust that He would be faithful to His promise to send Jesus to rescue them from their sins.
Some days, God’s children waited patiently for God to keep His promise. Some days, they waited with tears and frustration. Some days, they wondered if God had forgotten His promise. But God continued to whisper it over and over again as His children waited. And one day, when no one was expecting it, Jesus would come.
(Devotional credit: The Village Church – “Advent: He Keeps His Promises” )
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Although I know it in my head, my heart feels it every time I read about the separation from God causes by sin. God could not reside with sin, so we were separated. Separated from God, ouch. Now that I am in relationship with God, I look back on my time apart from Him and see how empty my life was, even though I thought I was rocking life and partying my way through it! I’m going through the discipleship series by Tim and just finished the first week in The Change of Life and this really reverberates with me today, as I just got done looking at my life before Christ and since coming in to relationship with Him. Wow, is all I can say.